


nobody ever said that victory came without casualties

by everybodyknowseverybodydies



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Gen, some D-Point feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9311999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyknowseverybodydies/pseuds/everybodyknowseverybodydies
Summary: Mako died first at D-Point, and maybe that was for the best.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from War pt. II by Former Vandal; inspired by some discussion a long time ago from keyofjetwolf on tumblr
> 
> I originally wrote this a few months ago but then never did anything with it, and since I want to post more things this year... well, here it is.

_“Come on, cheer up…”_

Makoto Kino is fourteen years old, and she is dying. She is dead. She knows this. She knows this, because the last thing she sees before her vision fades is her friends—

Rei tense and rigid, unbelieving, at a loss and stepping towards Usagi unconsciously.

Minako pale and numb and already planning; what will they do without their muscle?

Ami staring, staring, wide-eyed and frozen and, for once, not thinking at all.

And their princess. Usagi. Screaming and crying and begging and reaching for her, and all of them so, so far away, and Mako feels herself giving out, and she smiles with the last of her strength.

_Cheer up_.

And then she is dead, and she is alone in a little grey room with four chairs. “Hello?” Mako looks around. No doors. No windows. Just her and the chairs. She had thought, that maybe, being dead, she would at least get to see…

Maybe she’s in hell. Maybe hell is a little grey room and empty chairs. It would make as much sense as anything else.

She sits down.

If she is in hell, it’s worth it. They’ll survive, she made sure of that. She wasn’t sure she could pull it off, the explosion, but she had, she’d done it—and _oh_ how it had hurt, but her friends will live, _they will live_ because of it—

—and then with a stumble and a ragged gasp, Ami is there, wild-eyed and shaking. Mako stands up. The chair clatters to the ground behind her. “Ami?” Her voice comes out higher than it should as her heart drops. No, no, why is she here? She can’t be…? “ _Ami_?”

At the sound of her name Ami jerks around, looking for all the world like a collapsing marionette. Her eyes lock on Mako and a guttural sound tears out of her, something raw that isn’t quite like anything she’s ever heard Ami make before, and then without warning Ami has hurled herself at Mako and it’s all she can do to hold her and try to stop her shaking.

“Hey, hey,” she says worriedly, rubbing her back. “Hey. What—what happened? Why are you here? Ami—Ami…” But she won’t answer, even after she’s regained some semblance of control, just clings to Mako with white knuckles and her mouth clamped shut in a thin line and shakes her head vehemently.

In a flash of light and a crack of smoke, Minako joins them. Her jaw is still set, and she still looks numb. Somehow she’s even paler than she was before. Mako doesn’t want to think about what that means. Minako sits down in a chair without hesitation and gestures to the two beside her. “It’s okay,” she says, and her voice is softer than Mako can remember hearing it. “It’s okay.”

Ami shakes her head again, but she sits down at last beside Mina, holding onto Mako’s hand harder than would be comfortable if either of them were alive to feel it and reaching out to grab Mina’s too. Mako sits too and scoots her chair closer to both of them. “What happened?”

Mina’s gaze is locked somewhere on the floor. “You did good. She’ll make it. She can do this. Rei will get her to the end.”

“You were all supposed to make it,” Mako whispers. “I tried—I wanted—you were all supposed to make it, and take care of her, and each other—” Ami’s grip on her hand tightens somehow, but still she doesn’t say a word, eyes filling with tears.

“No. None of us were supposed to make it. Just Usagi.” Minako closes her eyes. “You did good,” she says again. “And Ami—you too. I’m… I was proud to fight with you guys.”

In the silence that stretches after that, Rei appears. She looks exhausted and somewhere between angry and broken, and she slides down the wall to sit on the floor, more tranquil than she has ever been in the time Mako has known her. She stares blankly somewhere past them, and Ami moves silently to the floor beside her. Rei doesn’t resist the tentative hug, too tired to do more than drop her head heavily against Ami’s shoulder. “She’s going to do it,” she says. Her voice cracks, so she says it again, more insistently. “She’s going to do it. She can do this. She _will_.”

She does, of course. Usagi is Sailor Moon is Princess Serenity, and when she calls, the room empties. None of them go back to the room when she falls.

In the time after D-Point, after they have their memories back and know themselves again, no one will tell Mako exactly what happened after she died. Rei gets that thousand-yard stare and looks haunted. “I couldn’t let go,” is all she says.

Minako laughs and shrugs it off in that Minako way of hers. “What’s there to remember? We saved the world,” she’ll say, never quite meeting Mako’s eyes.

Usagi whimpers and covers her face with her hands. “I felt it, every time,” she manages, and then can’t ever say more.

Ami still clams up the moment Mako mentions D-Point, turning white. “No,” she whispers, “please. Please.” Mako can never bring herself to press after that.

But she remembers enough, she decides. She remembers dying, and the room. She remembers her friends joining her, one by one. She remembers Ami’s broken sob and Minako’s vacant eyes and Rei’s head lolled to one side as though she didn’t have the strength to hold it upright anymore, even dead.

Maybe it’s good that they won’t tell her.

She still wishes they would.


End file.
